OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT
No, former Senator Jose “Pepe” W Diokno is not missing. He passed on in 1987 at the age of 65. If he were living today, he would have been 101, having been born in 1922. He is not missing but we miss him and his legacy. His life revolved around the defense of human rights especially before and during the dark years of martial law in the Philippines.
Pepe Diokno is considered the father of human rights advocacy. The least this nation could do to honor the man was indeed to put up his nine-foot statue at the center of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) of the Philippines compound entrance along Commonwealth Avenue in Diliman, Quezon City. The Diokno Memorial was unveiled on Sept. 21, 2017. The following year, the CHR inaugurated a freedom park rightefully named Liwasang Diokno in line with the Commission’s commitment that its premises be a safe space to all persons who may wish to peacefully exercise their freedoms.
I had met Pepe Diokno several times in the old Senate Building, now the National Museum, in their old home in Magallanes Village and in the streets. I used to skip classes in high school just to commute to the Senate and listen to the floor debates and privilege speeches of venerable senators including Pepe Diokno. Their intellect and dedication to public service were unquestionable, their work ethics consistent with the high calling of a senator of the Republic. They were the idols of my youth, the north star of my legal ambition.
Two of Diokno’s six daughters became my schoolmates at the University of the Philippines. Maris, the fourth of 10 siblings, was a colleague at the UP Student Conference, the forerunner of the UP Student Council which was abolished during martial law. She represented the College of Education in the Conference which I chaired. Maitet, the fifth, was my classmate at the School of Economics where we graduated in 1976. Very often when they hosted a quick gathering of friends and classmates at their sprawling Magallanes home, the senator would always spend a few minutes with us young students. He was always warm, humble and inquisitive. He would then invariably retire to his cavernous library.
We would meet the senator in subsequent occasions, mostly in the streets, or attending wakes of fallen heroes against martial law. By that time, he had been released from a two-year imprisonment in Fort Magsaysay and Fort Bonifacio, without charges.
Sometime in 1982, when I was losing time in submitting my application for graduate studies at the London School of Economics (LSE), Maitet, herself an LSE alumna, volunteered her Dad to bring them to Maris. Maris was completing her PhD at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London. The senator was flying to London to do a documentary for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on human rights, later referred to as To Sing Our Own Song as a part of the “Third Eye.” His timely and generous assistance allowed me to beat the deadline; I was admitted.
After reading the book Jose W Diokno Pamana, written by the sixth child, Cookie, published only last year, I understood better where the man was coming from.
Pepe Diokno was a strong adherent of an anonymous Credo entitled “Where Justice Will Flourish.” Among its declaration is that “there is but one right everywhere; that I am not free if even one person remains enslaved.” His dedication to justice was extremely inclusive. In his own personal life, Diokno did not amass a fortune and he was not interested in that. As Cookie recalled: “Money was not important to Dad as long as we ate three meals a day, had a roof over our heads, and were comfortable…he valued education…a good education is for life.” We would definitely be a hundred times better off if our public officials today share a small fraction of Diokno’s propriety.
If Pepe Diokno were in the Senate today, civilian-oriented agencies of government would be lucky if they got any confidential and intelligence fund. He would rather put it in education, health, justice and other public goods. As provenance, during his first term at the Senate between1963 and 1969, he authored bills on appeals procedures, retirement benefits of municipal and city judges, creating circuit criminal courts, enhancing investment incentives, revision of election law and other bills with economic and social benefits for our country and people.
Based on Pamana, Diokno was a reluctant politician. Before he ran for the Senate and won, he was appointed secretary of justice by President Diosdado M. Macapagal but was fired after barely five months, from Dec. 31, 1961 to May 19, 1962 for delivering on his mandate. As justice secretary, he addressed the issue of midnight appointments; filed a case against a special prosecutor for failure to turn over confidential documents to allow the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute graft cases against the outgoing administration; and prosecuted an oil company for violation of the corporation law involving the brother of the previous president. He also sought to clean up the Bureau of Immigration—sounds familiar—given the proliferation of overstaying Chinese temporary residents. He also created an antitrust committee to crack down on profiteers and hoarders following President Macapagal’s decontrol program.
It was Pepe Diokno who also proposed amendments to the 1935 Constitution to strengthen judicial independence, providing security of tenure of public office, term limits and appointments of judges by the Supreme Court rather than by Congress. He also argued for elevating the Public Service Commission to a constitutional office to ward off pressures from politicians.
But we miss Pepe Diokno more for his role in prosecuting Harry Stonehill and resisting martial law. True, he served the Philippine government only for less than two decades and if scale does matter, Pepe Diokno seems to deserve only a footnote; others spent decades more.
But what he championed, with the way he pursued it, was bigger than him, bigger than life itself.
It’s expressed in the framework for the peace talk between the Philippine Government and the National Democratic Front in 1986 which he prepared from his sickbed: “For what is freedom when there is no food, or justice when there are no jobs? A starving man does not have much freedom of choice, and there is no justice in poverty. Food without freedom, jobs without justice would be like leaves without trees.”
(to be concluded next week)